#1578 – AMS–LGW vv with GA 88/GA 89

So I went to London for an impromptu weekend trip in June and to get/from there, I took Garuda Indonesia’s fifth freedom flight between Amsterdam and London. Btw, yes, finally I flew a fifth freedom flight for the first time since August 2010, when I was flying, also, with Garuda Indonesia flight GA 88 from Dubai (DXB) to Amsterdam (AMS).

Anyway, this post is the trip report of the return flight from Amsterdam to London-Gatwick with Garuda Indonesia GA 88 and GA 89.

AMS – LGW with GA 88

I was so curious to know which one of Garuda’s Boeing 777-300ERs (B77W) which would bring me to London. I was hoping it would not be PK-GIA because I got PK-GIA on both of my flights to/from Indonesia last year. I mean, I wanted to make my logbook more complete, so new airplane please!! So I was excited the evening before departure that Garuda deployed PK-GIE on their Jakarta (CGK) – Amsterdam (AMS) flight on 12 June, which meant that PK-GIE would serve my Amsterdam (AMS) – London (LGW) flight on 13 June. But had I left to London on 12 June, I would have got PK-GIG though, Garuda’s newest B77W (at the time; as a few days ago, on 19 June 2015, Garuda just got the newer B77W, PK-GIH, thus bringing the total of B77W to seven in their fleet), haha😆 .

Anyway, on Saturday I arrived at Schiphol at around 08:15 and checked-in at the check-in counter where there was no queue at all. I got to the gate and PK-GIE was already waiting for me there.

A Garuda Indonesia’s Boeing 777-300ER reg PK-GIE which brought me to London as flight GA 88

Long story short, at 09:30, the boarding call was made. This flight was also exciting for me because it would be my first flight with Garuda Indonesia after they got the five star airline rating in the end of 2014. Anyway, so I made to my seat and made myself comfortable in Garuda’s comfortable cabin. And this particular flight also made me realize one element of Garuda’s cabin, the very nice scent! Probably having flown a lot this year (this flight was my 21st flight in the year 2015 alone, a lot for my standard) made me realize this aspect which I have never seen smelled in other airlines.

Anyway, the pushback was a little bit late due to the heavy traffic at Schiphol this morning. Nevertheless, we departed not long after and took off from runway 24 of Schiphol.

Taking off during the usual Dutch summer weather

The IFE was fully operational but due to the very short duration of the flight (about 45 minutes; yes, Amsterdam – London is closer than Jakarta – Yogyakarta, haha😆 ), not much feature was worth the use so I just chose to play some music with it. Not long after take-off, the flight attendants were rushing distributing the complimentary snack and drink.

The snack was a tomato and pesto roll and a lemon and blueberry sponge while the drink was just a small bottle of mineral water. While the snack was definitely much more generous than what KLM/Air France offered on their short-haul European flight, I still felt like it was not as generous as in Garuda’s short-haul (under 1.5 – 2 hours) domestic flights in Indonesia. As for the drink, I’d like to think it was just for practicality because of the super short flight duration.

Garuda Indonesia’s Boeing 777-300ER’s In Flight Entertainment

Complimentary snack on board GA 88 and GA 89 from AMS-LGW vv

And when I got mine, the captain announced that we were starting to descend now. Lol😆 . And not long after, the following pre-landing announcement was made:

And a few minutes later, we landed at runway 26L of London-Gatwick Airport in Crawley. Here is the landing video:

LGW – AMS with GA 89

I arrived at London-Gatwick Airport at around 09:40 in the morning, some 30 minutes earlier than I thought. I took the shuttle to go from the South to the North terminal. I checked-in for my GA 89 flight where I learned that had I had a Sky Team Elite Plus membership (that would be at least a Gold level on Flying Blue, while mine was still Silver), I would have got an invitation for lunch by Garuda Indonesia.

Breakfast butties at Gatwick

Turned out it was a sandwich

Anyway, as I was early, I decided to have breakfast at a Jamie Oliver’s restaurant in the departure area where I had a “sausage butties“. Like, I mean, yes, that was the real name of the menu, I was LOL-ing so hard in my mind😆 . And it turned out to be a sausage sandwich, haha😆 .

I went to the gate after that, where another Garuda’s B77W was already waiting. Thank God it was not PK-GIA (for the same reason as before, and it was impossible for PK-GIE to be my ride today), as it was Garuda’s second B77W, PK-GIC.

A Garuda Indonesia’s Boeing 777-300ER reg PK-GIC which brought me back to Amsterdam as GA 89

Boarding commenced at around 11:45 and I made myself comfortable in my seat. At this point I just realized that my phone’s battery was very low so I decided to charge my phone with the provided electricity plug underneath the seat:

Charging my iPhone

We had to wait a little bit before take-off due to the busy traffic and London-Gatwick’s only one runway. After waiting for about 10 minutes by the runway, we took off from runway 26L of London-Gatwick Airport.

The service was the same with of the departure flight GA 88 so there is no point in rewriting the same thing here. It was a pleasant flight with Garuda Indonesia. About ten minutes before landing, the flight attendant made a pre-landing announcement:

and not long after we landed at runway 06 of Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. Here is the landing video:

General Impression

Seat Arrangement

Garuda Indonesia decides to go with the 3-3-3 seat arrangement in economy on their B77W while some other airlines, for instance KLM and Air France, fit their B77W’s economy class with the 3-4-3 seat arrangement. Of course this means Garuda’s B77W can carry less passengers than, say, KLM’s B77W; but at the same time it offers some extra comfort to the passengers too because the lower density seat arrangement yields in more roomier cabin.

For instance, here is a comparison of PK-GIC’s cabin and KLM’s PH-BVG cabin (which I flew with in April 2015 as flight KL868 from Osaka-Kansai to Amsterdam), both are B77W:

On board Garuda’s Boeing 777-300ER reg PK-GIC

On board KLM’s Boeing 777-300ER reg PH-BVG

Load Factor

However, apparently Garuda is not doing as well in the London-Gatwick market (while doing very well in the Amsterdam market) which results in their schedule readjustment starting from July 22nd. They will drop the Jakarta – Amsterdam – London vv service from 5 times to 3 times weekly and introduce a new triangular service Jakarta – Singapore – Amsterdam – Jakarta 3 times weekly. This means Amsterdam will be served 6 times weekly from Jakarta while London only 3 times weekly.

The right engine of PK-GIC

All this time, somehow I imagined the load-factor between Amsterdam and London to be barren, like almost noone was flying or something like that, haha😆 (despite their super amazing promotional fare which is very very cheap btw IMO and this fare is basically available at any time even if you buy the ticket last minute). But in both flights, actually the load factor was not that bad. I estimate the load factor of my GA 88 flight to be around 75-80% in economy while the return GA 89 flight to be around 70-75%. But indeed, if most passengers got their tickets with the super cheap fare, it is likely that the load factor of 70% would still not be good enough of course.

Flying from the Netherlands to the United Kingdom with an Indonesian airline

Aaah Zilko! You made me envy. Hahahaha. It’s always nice reading your flying experience.
As for the sandwich with sausage too bad I aaw the picture first. Haha. Otherwise.. Wkwkwkwk. The name is funny.